


Household Gods

by locker_monster



Category: Doctor Who
Genre: Drama, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-14
Updated: 2015-06-27
Packaged: 2018-04-04 07:52:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 13,723
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4130254
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/locker_monster/pseuds/locker_monster
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>An unexpected discovery at the British Museum leads the Doctor and Clara to Ancient Rome, but things quickly get out of hand when the Doctor is mistaken for another man... Set pre-"The Caretaker"; no spoilers.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this fic back in December, but I have a feeling that it will be Moffat'd in season nine, so I thought I would get it posted before that happens. Many thanks to rumpelsnorcack for the awesome beta.

Clara couldn't claim that the Doctor had ruined museums for her, but it was harder to be awed by artefacts and relics when the ability to visit them when they were brand new was at her fingertips. That was part of the reason travelling with the Doctor appealed so much to her. She had a chance to appreciate things long gone from the world.

She walked through the Great Court of the British Museum, doing her best to keep track of her group of students as they navigated through the crowds. Hers was one group out of three of Year Sevens from Coal Hill that were visiting for the day, but she had caught glimpses of other groups from other visiting schools as well. Not for the first time, she wished that the school uniforms were a bit more distinctive. Every student here wore the same black blazer and it was hard to distinguish her students from the rest from just their backs. Different coloured ties were only good if she was facing her students.

"Keep together," she said in vain. Herding a group of twelve year olds was like herding cats. There were always going to be a few that would wander away.

Clara looked back briefly and saw Danny managing his own group of students. It had been sweet of him to volunteer after Adrian came down with the flu. This was far from his usual realm of numbers and equations, but she knew him well enough now to know that Danny Pink was always up for a challenge.

He noticed her just then and offered her a smile and Clara beamed back at him.

"Miss Oswald?"

Clara looked back. She had fallen slightly behind her group and all fifteen of her students were waiting for her at the entrance of the Greek and Roman wing. The one who had called her name, a girl named Ruby, had one of her usual perplexed looks and it was aimed at Danny. Ooh, these kids were catching on, fast.

At least they had waited for her instead of running ahead. She lengthened her stride and caught up with her group. Most had taken advantage of her inattention to pull out their phones. "Mobiles away," she urged. "You can Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram to your heart's content at lunch."

There were some groans, but everyone tucked their phones away as asked. Clara ushered them on until they reached Room 18, home of the famed Elgin Marbles.

"I thought they were columns," said one of her students, a boy named Samson, as they entered the large space.

"Nope, they're sculptures and statues from the Parthenon in Athens." Clara had been here before but it was still amazing to see these ancient pieces of art surviving in their time . So much of history was destroyed.

"Then why are they called the Elgin Marbles?"

"Because," said a middle aged woman who had been waiting for them at the end of the room, "they're made out of marble and they were acquired by a man named Thomas Bruce, who was the 7th Earl of Elgin."

The woman herself wasn't familiar, but Clara recognized her voice from the numerous planning sessions over the phone that they had had for this school trip.

"Professor Jackson. Clara Oswald. It's nice to finally meet you." She walked over and shook the woman's hand. Jackson was taller than Clara with short blonde hair and wire frame glasses. She was dressed fairly casually in jeans and a navy blazer with a t-shirt underneath, but it made her more approachable.

"So why aren't they called the Bruce Marbles?" asked Samson, interrupting the introductions.

Jackson just smiled. "Good question. I suppose everyone remembered Thomas Bruce by his title, so they used 'Elgin' instead of 'Bruce' as a nickname for the Marbles."

By now, the other groups had arrived and Clara quietly slipped away so Professor Jackson could address all of the students. School trips were always a logistical headache, but she still thought that they were worth it. It got the kids out of the classroom and they could see firsthand the things they were learning about.

She tried to make her way towards Danny, but a tour group got in her way and she was forced to hang back as the tour guide explained, in what sounded like Japanese, what some of the different Marbles were.

Clara decided to examine the nearest frieze to her, which featured men riding horses. Most of the figures were intact, but the occasional hoof or hand was missing.

"Is she going to explain the dubious legal means by which Elgin obtained the Marbles?"

A familiar Scottish voice sounded behind her and Clara whirled around to find the Doctor. He had his back to her and his attention seemed to be on the Japanese tour guide, but there was no mistaking that it was the Time Lord. The grey hair and lean build gave it away.

"What are you doing here?" hissed Clara. The Japanese tour group blocked her view of Danny and she hoped his eye line was equally obscured. Grabbing the Doctor by the arm, she dragged him over to a nearby pillar.

He tried to pull his arm free from her grip, but she maintained a tight hold. "This is a museum. It's open to everyone."

"So you just happen to be here while I'm on a school trip."

"No, I phoned your school and asked where you were."

Clara's eyebrows shot up her forehead. "You what?" She desperately wanted to shout the two words at the Doctor, but she didn't want to draw any attention. "Why?"

She didn't mind when the Doctor landed the TARDIS in the middle of her flat or in a supply closet at school because it always happened before or after school hours. This was an intrusion into her working life. She needed to focus on looking after her students, not thinking about a quick jaunt to another galaxy.

"Well, you weren't at your flat and you weren't answering your phone. It's Wednesday," he added, as if that explained everything.

Which, in fact, it did. They had a long-standing agreement that Wednesday was their official travel day. Clara could always expect the Doctor to show up on a Wednesday. Of course, that didn't stop him from popping up on other days, like today.

"Doctor, it's Monday. Monday morning, in fact."

His brow furrowed. It amused Clara to watch his prominent eyebrows push down to such extreme angles. "You have the date wrong," he insisted.

She pulled out her phone from her bag - where the screen showed a few missed calls from the TARDIS' number - and she showed the Doctor the date and time displayed there. "See, Monday. Now can you please go somewhere else for the next three hours?"

He finally noticed the gaggle of students listening intently to Professor Jackson. "You're an English teacher. What are you doing at a museum?"

"I'm helping out one of the history teachers and who says I can't use a museum to teach a lesson?" Clara forced herself to stop and take a breath. She and the Doctor could argue for hours if they wanted and that was the last thing she needed. "I just need until lunch. We can talk then." She walked off so they couldn't launch into another squabble.

Just before she reached Danny, Clara glanced back and, much to her relief, she saw the Doctor walking out of the room.

"Hey, where were you?" Danny asked in a whisper.

"Had a message on my phone from my dad. I didn't want the kids to see me using my mobile during class." The lie came easily, as did most of the lies she told Danny. Clara wasn't sure if this was a good thing.

So she put on a sweet smile and that seemed to stop any questions Danny had, but meanwhile she couldn't help but wonder what would happen if the Doctor and Danny ever met.

 

The Great Court was packed today with students and tourists and they had been lucky to claim a corner that was out of the way of the foot traffic. Thankfully, twelve year olds didn't mind sitting on the floor to eat lunch .

Clara's phone rang just as she was coming back with a cup of tea and a sandwich from the little café in the Court. She had wanted to spend lunch with Danny, as they hadn't had a chance to really talk all morning, but she knew who was calling and she also knew she couldn't put off talking to him for another time.

"Sorry, got to take this," she said to Danny, handing off her tea and sandwich to him. "Be right back." She hit the talk button and brought the phone to her ear as she walked off into the crowd.

"Is it lunch time now?" the Doctor asked before Clara could say hello. He sounded so impatient, but she didn't feel like that ire was directed at her. He just seemed impatient with the slow drag of time.

"Yes. Where are you?"

"I'm in the Greek and Roman wing. The dates on some of these artefacts are hilarious. There's an urn here that's clearly from the first century AD, not the second."

She headed in that direction, dodging around slow moving tourists. "Yeah, that sounds like a riot," she said dryly. "I'll see you in a mo." 

The various rooms were a bit quieter at lunch, but there were still plenty of people wandering around, looking at the antiquities. Clara drifted through the various exhibits until she spotted the TARDIS parked in an unobtrusive corner. She started to head towards the time machine when she noticed the Doctor examining a display a few steps away.

He wasn't aware of her presence yet and she took opportunity of the moment to look him over. He was dressed in his usual dark colours and his body language was relaxed and collected. This couldn't have been an emergency if he agreed to wait for three hours to talk to her. Of course, normal, human behaviour didn't apply to the Doctor. He could remain cool while facing impending death, but something as mundane as finding lost house keys nearly threw him for a loop.

"Is everything okay?" she asked, walking over. 

He looked up at her. "Why are you asking that?"

"Usually, when you phone the school, you just leave a message." During her first year at Coal Hill, everyone thought she was terminally ill from the amount of calls and messages she received from her "doctor". "Do you need me for something? You wouldn't have come out here otherwise."

The Doctor moved on to the next display which housed a cracked marble bust of a woman. "You make it sound so dire. I honestly thought it was Wednesday. I just wanted to take a trip."

Clara crossed her arms. "And that's all?"

He sighed and drifted over to the next display. "Yes." Add an eye roll and he could have been one of her students, exasperated from her numerous questions regarding the latest English assignment .

Well, at least he wasn't in trouble. That took a load off of Clara's mind. She kept in step with him as they continued down the row of artefacts. They had passed through this room earlier to get to the Elgin Marbles and she vaguely recalled that these were new items on loan from some excavation in Rome.

"So where would we go if today had been Wednesday?"

The question was enough to draw the Doctor's attention back to Clara. He had a devious grin. "Why wait until Wednesday?"

"Now? You want to go somewhere now?" She thought of Danny, sitting back in the Great Court, holding her cup of tea.

"Do you keep forgetting that I live in a time machine?" It was as if the Doctor had read her thoughts. Or maybe her hesitant expression gave her away. "I can have you back a minute from now."

"It's a school day," reasoned Clara, but she couldn't deny that a part of her was sorely tempted. "I have kids waiting back at the Court and there's only two other teachers here." She paused, searching for more good reasons not to go, but that temptation wouldn't go away.

It wouldn't have been irresponsible of her if she did go on a short trip. It wasn't like she was leaving in the middle of a lesson. They were on lunch break. It'd be like ducking out to run an errand if she were back at the school. Time was relative. She'd only be gone five minutes from Danny's point of view.

Danny. She already told him one lie today. He didn't deserve another.

Clara made up her mind right then. She would stay and do her job and she and the Doctor could go somewhere after school was done. Everybody won this way.

She was ready to tell the Doctor her decision, but he wasn't there anymore. She looked around the room and found him standing in front of another display. Clara shook her head. She hadn't been inattentive for _that_ long.

"Can we do a rain check on the trip? There's too much to do today." She walked over and joined him at the display.

The Doctor didn't reply. He just stared at the slab of marble propped up on the platform. At first, she thought he was just engrossed with examining the carvings, but then she noticed it wasn't a rapt expression on his face. It was one of surprise.

Clara quickly took in the details of the marble slab and her eyes went wide.

The carving was no bigger than a lunch tray, slightly grimy and very weathered due to the ravages of time. The right side of the rectangular slab had broken off at some point, leaving an uneven edge at a forty-five degree angle. The figure of a woman who graced the right hand side of the carving was, unfortunately, left without a head or chest.

But it was the image in the middle of the slab that was unbelievable. A rectangular box with a stacked roof sat atop a podium. It might have been a temple, but Clara didn't know of any Roman temples with lights on top of them and this box definitely had a lantern shaped light on top of the roof. She couldn't make out the writing along the top width of the box, but something had been written there long ago.

"One of us needs to say it," she said to the Doctor.

The Doctor had his jaw clenched the entire time and it took him a moment before he could speak. "That's the TARDIS."

The moment he said, she knew that she wasn't going crazy. Her eyes flicked over to the other figure on the left hand side of the slab. It was a man, but his features and most of the details of his clothing had been worn away.

"Been to Ancient Rome lately?" The man had to be the Doctor. Not the Doctor standing next to her, necessarily, but one of his other selves.

"Not recently, but I've been there numerous times before."

Clara leaned forward to read the title card underneath the slab. The slab was, according to the museum, a marble carving from approximately 80 AD. It was likely part of a shrine dedicated to the household gods that a Roman family had worshipped.

Gods. Worshipped. The words took Clara by surprise. The Doctor could be arrogant but he was no deity.

"Is it good or bad that they worshipped you?"

"I don't know." That stunned feeling was wearing off. The Doctor wanted to look into this mystery; she could tell by the gleam in his eye. Hell, she was pretty intrigued, too. Who would want to worship the Doctor?

"Then let's find out."

The Doctor finally tore his gaze away from the marble carving. For just a second, he regarded her with astonishment, but it quickly gave way to a pleased, though somewhat smug, smile. Of course he had assumed she would come along, like she couldn't resist his charm or something.

"Just this once," Clara declared. "I don't like you on your own. You're liable to burn down Rome or something."

The Doctor laughed derisively as they headed for the TARDIS. "That's the wrong time period. And I've already done that."

Clara was not surprised.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wrote this fic back in December, but I have a feeling that it will be Moffat'd in season nine, so I thought I would get it posted before that happens. Many thanks to rumpelsnorcack for the awesome beta.

If any Ancient Romans were surprised by the sudden appearance of a big blue box in a narrow side street, no one bothered to show it. The Doctor stepped out of the TARDIS, in clear view of dozens of people, and hardly anyone looked in his direction. A few more heads of the male persuasion turned when Clara stepped out, but the looks didn't linger.

"You have no idea where to go, do you?" she said.

"Well, it's not like marble has an energy signature." He had landed them in central Rome, in 80 AD, but it was the best he could do with the scant information they had.

"So now what? You're going to go around asking people if they worship a big box?"

"Yes, or I could ask the local marble merchants if they recently received an order for a household gods carving featuring a man, a woman, and a big box."

Clara only mulled this thought over for a second before she countered, "Okay, but how many marble merchants were there in Ancient Rome?"

That the Doctor didn't know. The maps he had aboard the TARDIS did not conveniently list the location of every commodity trader in the city. They would have to do this the old fashioned way. "We'll never know standing around here." He nudged Clara into the street so he could lock the TARDIS doors. "Just start walking."

"Fine." She headed for the end of the street where it connected with a larger thoroughfare. 

He double checked that the doors were locked. The last thing he needed was for some local to wander in and decide it was a holy temple. It was entirely possible that he was the man on the marble carving and it was some misadventure here that started all of this. That was the irony of time travel. Sometimes he saw the consequences before the necessary actions took place.

A few long strides enabled him to catch up with Clara. She hadn't gotten very far. She kept slowing to peer at the merchant stalls that lined the street. The Doctor realized then that they never had a proper trip this far back into Earth’s history before. Meeting Robin Hood during the Crusades was the furthest Clara had been.

They had a lot of ground to cover, but he suddenly felt no haste to see their search concluded. There was time to enjoy a pleasant afternoon here.

"Ancient Rome," mused Clara and the Doctor knew she had been thinking the same thing. "You always think it was just togas and gladiators and emperors, but things aren't that different here."

They turned onto the larger street and the Doctor quickly scanned the front of the shops for any sign of a marble merchant. Spotting something a few doors down, he indicated to Clara to follow him. "I met Nero once. He was jealous of my skills with the lyre."

"You can play the lyre?" Clara raised an incredulous eyebrow.

"I never said I played it." 

There wasn’t a traditional door on the shop, just a sliding wooden shutter that was pushed to the side. A mosaic of a hammer and chisel chipping away at a hunk of marble adorned the floor of the shop, acting both as a sign of the services provided and a piece of art. The interior was lit with torches, adding a scent of burning pitch to the air. Numerous marble statues, ranging from tiny figures to full size busts, adorned the room.

The Doctor looked around, noting the high quality of the work. This shop likely catered to the wealthier families in the city. Clara reached out to touch a statue of Diana posing with a deer when a heavy set man entered the shop from a curtain doorway near the back.

"Kindly refrain from touching the merchandise!"

Clara pulled her hand back, but not without a scowl. "This isn't glassware. It's not going to break."

The man shuffled over and shooed Clara to another part of the shop without any statues. "My customers will not appreciate having a stranger's grubby hands all over their works of art."

The Doctor stepped in before she could start shouting at the man, even though he greatly deserved a good berating. He took a second to assess the proprietor, for he couldn't have been anyone else but the owner. The man wore a dark green tunic trimmed with gold stitching and his dark hair was a mass of curls. He must have made quite a bit of money to stay so well fed and clothed.

"She's a foreigner. The Celts' idea of art is to stack slabs of stones on top of each other."

The man shifted his attention to the Doctor and his ire was instantly replaced with a gracious smile. "Ah, good day to you, sir. A barbarian is she? Is she your slave?"

The Doctor felt Clara's glare boring into his back like a laser. "Are you the owner of this shop?" he asked instead, sidestepping the question.

"I am; Gaius Septimus. What do you require?" Gaius' voice dripped with sincerity. He saw a sale in the Doctor, who, at a glance, probably looked like a proper gentleman who potentially had plenty of money to spend.

"A colleague was raving about a marble carving he saw recently. A household gods tableau. It featured a god and a goddess on either side of an interesting looking temple."

Gaius shook his head before the Doctor could describe the TARDIS. "We only deal in marble statues here, good sir. We have several smaller options if you desire figures for your household shrine." He picked up a small statue of Mars that was only a foot high and held it out to the Doctor.

He batted Gaius' hands away. "Do you know of someone who does shrine carvings?"

Gaius seemed to deflate once he realized he wasn't about to make a sale. "If it is your intent to waste your money on lesser products, then you should go visit the plebs in their neighbourhoods." He put the statue back down and stormed off without another word.

"Barbarian?" asked Clara once Gaius was out of earshot.

"Yes, he was quite a brute." The Doctor, deep in thought, headed out of the shop. Maybe they would have better luck with the lower class citizens. They made up the majority of the labourers in the city. In his mind, an artist remembered every piece they did. The one selling the work only remembered how much they made from the sale.

"Not him." Clara fell into step next to him. "He called me a barbarian."

They stepped back out into the bright Mediterranean sun. "It's just a term, Clara. The Celts were actually fairly integrated into Roman society."

"Yeah, after they were invaded."

"If you want to get huffy about it, yes, but you've been living separate lives for centuries now so there's nothing to complain about." If they were near Palatine Hill, then the working class neighbourhoods were west of here. The Doctor noted the position of the sun in the sky and used that determine the right direction.

"Time heals all wounds?" suggested Clara, though this wasn't an optimistic sentiment.

"Something like that."

 

It was a pleasant walk to the working class district. The weather was warm and the sky was cloudless and it didn't matter if they got lost a few times. A question from Clara got the Doctor talking about the time he met Nero and how he had foiled an assassination attempt on the emperor, which all eventually led to how he, inadvertently, helped to burn down Rome.

"Did you cause the Great Fire, too?" asked Clara.

"No, that was the Terileptils. I just happened to be there."

"I don't know why I ask sometimes."

The streets were narrower here, giving the impression of a maze. Despite how tightly packed everything was, it was hardly a slum. The buildings weren't dilapidated and there weren't any crooks or thieves lurking in the darkened doorways. There were just people, people who worked hard to earn their living. Ancient Rome was known for its emperors and senators, but this was the true heart of the empire.

"Because I always weave a compelling tale." The Doctor zeroed in on a merchant selling amphora from a nearby stall. It wasn't marble, but the man would know the layout of the neighbourhood. He walked over and when it became apparent that he was approaching the stall, the merchant immediately snapped to attention.

"Good day, citizen. Interested in buying some finely crafted amphorae?" He wasn't dressed as finely as Gaius, his tunic was spun from coarser wool, but he had the same hopeful expression.

Straight into the sales pitch. The Doctor idly wondered if he really did look like one of the wealthy. "I'm looking for a marble carver."

"Oh." The merchant made no effort to hide his disappointment. "There's Marcello. He has a shop at the end of the street." The Doctor walked off in the direction indicated, while Clara lingered for a second longer to thank the merchant.

Marcello's shop was much smaller than Gaius'. There was only the one room and the products were placed wherever there was space rather than in organized displays. Along with statues, there were friezes and decorative shrine tableaux similar to the one they had found at the museum. The Doctor didn't spot any carving tools or half-finished commissions, so he naturally assumed that Marcello did his work in another location.

The carver sat by the door, taking advantage of the natural light to examine a small marble slab. It depicted Vulcan at his forge, surrounded by armour and weapons. The top left hand corner was noticeably chipped.

Marcello looked up when the Doctor and Clara's figures filled the doorway, blocking some of the sunlight. He was a younger man, darkly tanned, and his clothes and hair were streaked with white marble dust. "Oh, praise Jupiter, you're not him."

The Doctor and Clara moved further into the shop, allowing the sunlight to fall again on the marble carving. In addition to the chip, the Doctor noticed a fine crack snaking out from the corner. "You're expecting the buyer," he presumed.

"Yes, very soon. I knew I shouldn't have trusted that boy to move these." With a sigh, Marcello put aside the carving and he rose to his feet. "Can I help you with something? If you desire a commission, I would suggest coming back later, assuming I still live."

"It can't be as bad as that," said Clara.

"Oh, you don't know Tiberius. Even his own soldiers fear him."

"We won't keep you from your impending doom then," said the Doctor, earning him a disapproving glare from Clara. "I'm trying to track down a carving."

"One of mine?" Marcello, already nervous to begin with, viewed the Doctor with a guarded expression. It was as if he feared that one of his works was being returned.

"Possibly, but by the law of averages it seems doubtful. It's a household gods carving, with a man and a woman. There's a temple between them that looks like a tall box with a light on top."

Marcello stared blankly at him. "A light? The temple is aflame?"

"You should have taken a picture of it with your phone," the Doctor muttered to Clara. He dug into his pockets instead and pulled out a pad of paper and a pencil. He knew the items were an anachronism in this time period, but it was the only way for him to make a quick illustration.

He did a sketch of how the TARDIS looked on the carving, which, at its very basic, was just a rectangle with more rectangles on it to represent the door panels, the windows, and the roof. The lantern on top was a square with rounded edges.

Marcello took in the drawing, but he seemed more interested in the pencil used to create it. "What an interesting brush."

"The carving," the Doctor reiterated, stashing the pencil back in his pocket. "Does it look familiar?"

Marcello begrudgingly shifted his attention back to the drawing and he took in the details with a practiced eye. "No, but a unique commission like this won't be easily forgotten. I would suggest speaking to Lucretia. She's another carver two streets over."

Another stop. The Doctor hadn't expected this task to be easy, but at this rate, they would be walking all over Rome to find their answer. He knew they should have taken the TARDIS.

Clara thanked Marcello and they left the shop to make the quick trip over to Lucretia's.

It turned out to be the start of a very long afternoon. Lucretia knew nothing of the carving, but she habitually visited the workshops of her fellow carvers and helpfully pointed them to the ten most likely candidates. With the names and their locations committed to memory, the Doctor and Clara began their winding journey through the streets of Rome.

The first few had nothing new to offer. By the fourth carver, the Doctor had done up a more detailed sketch of the TARDIS with rough stand-ins for the supposed god and goddess to help jog some memories.

"That's really good," Clara had commented, looking genuinely surprised that the Doctor could draw.

The new drawing seemed to help. The fifth marble carver claimed the carving looked familiar and directed them to talk to the eighth name on their list.

"Should we jump ahead?" wondered Clara. It was late afternoon and the sun was starting to disappear behind the tops of the buildings.

"I'm going to jump ahead. You need to eat something." Clara's stomach chose to growl just then, as if to emphasis the Doctor's point.

She clapped a hand to her traitorous stomach, as though that could shut it up. "I'm fine. Let's go talk to this Horatius guy."

"I really don't need your stomach grumbling like an angry tiger while I'm trying to extract important information. Someone's going to think there's an escaped animal from the Colosseum." He was also concerned about the fact that Clara hadn't eaten anything since this morning. He didn't need her inconveniently passing out in the middle of the conversation, either.

By now, many of the pubs and taverns were starting to fill up with labourers coming home from a day of work. The smell of cooked food permeated the air. Clara's stomach gave another involuntary gurgle.

"Fine," she sighed. "I will eat something, but I'm staying nearby."

He easily found her an open air tavern near where Horatius had his workshop. A quick scrounge of his pockets even yielded enough denarii for Clara to have a decent meal. "This won't take long," he assured her as he walked off.

Horatius' workshop was situated in a courtyard behind an insula, the most common type of apartment building in Ancient Rome. The steady tap tap tap of a hammer and chisel made its way to the Doctor's ears as he neared the entrance. Within the courtyard, he found Horatius at work, turning a hunk of white marble into a life-like statue. Everything in the courtyard, from the cobble stone floor to the wooden work benches, was covered in a fine layer of marble dust.

Even in the waning sunlight, Horatius showed no inclination to stop working for the day. The Doctor was practically standing next to him before the carver looked up. "Back for more?" He fixed the Doctor with a friendly smile, but the smile faltered once he got a good look at the Doctor. "Oh, my apologies. I thought you were a customer."

"How do you know that I'm not here to purchase one of your pieces?"

Horatius stowed the hammer and chisel in the pockets of the dust streaked smock that he wore over his tunic. "I mean to say a regular customer. You look remarkably like him."

"Just as well. I'm not here to buy anything."

"Then why are you here?" Horatius ran his hand over his bald head, wiping away the dust that had settled there.

The Doctor pulled out his sketch, not wanting to waste any more time. "This carving. It is one of yours?"

The man took one glance at it and nodded his head. "Yes. It was a commission from earlier this year. Work's mine, but the design came from the customer."

If the Doctor had been the excitable type, he might have let out a grateful cry just then. "Do you remember who the customer was? I'd like to speak to them."

"Of course I remember. He's the customer who looks like you. Lobus Caecilius."

The Doctor's hearts thudded heavily in his chest as memories, somehow forgotten, came flooding back.

_His tenth incarnation. Donna. Pompeii. The day before Vesuvius erupted._

_A resplendent villa. The homeowner had bought the TARDIS. He wasn't open for trade today._

_"And that trade would be?"_

_"Marble. Lobus Caecilius. Mining, polishing and design thereof. If you want marble, I'm your man."_

Caecilius. A tall man with short grey hair and sharp blue eyes, with a crooked nose and a lined face. A familiar face.

The Doctor's face.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wrote this fic back in December, but I have a feeling that it will be Moffat'd in season nine, so I thought I would get it posted before that happens. Many thanks to rumpelsnorcack for the awesome beta.

Clara had to admit she _was_ hungry. She hadn't eaten anything since breakfast beyond one sip of her tea back at the British Museum before the Doctor had phoned.

Her stomach rumbled again as she got into line at the tavern. It was oddly like a fast food restaurant back home. A person got up to the counter, gave their order, handed over their money, and then they had a hot meal a few minutes later. There were no deep fryers or grills here, though. Just a stoneware oven for baking bread and numerous amphorae filled with a variety of foodstuffs.

While waiting, Clara did a quick browse of the menu, which was just a mosaic on the wall. All pictures, no words. Handy if you couldn't read. When she made it to the front of the line, she went for something simple. Fresh bread and cheese, figs, and a mug of wine. Since it was such a simple order, she had her food in no time and she went to find a place to sit.

She chose a table that faced the street so she could spot the Doctor when he returned. The first fig she casually popped into her mouth and she wasn't prepared for the explosion of flavour. It was sweet like peach, far sweeter than the figs she was used to back home. The second one she bit into more slowly and that allowed her to truly appreciate the taste. The cheese, goat from the taste of it, melted on the still warm bread and the wine, though watered down, was still rich and fruity.

This was definitely better than the tuna and corn sandwich she had bought at the Great Court café.

Clara sat there for a few minutes, just enjoying the food and the atmosphere. She and the Doctor managed uneventful trips from time to time, but it was always nice to simply sit and not worry about invading aliens or impending death. As peaceful as it was, she wished for company. Someone who could appreciate the sights and sounds with her. The Doctor was an obvious choice, but she wished Danny could be here, too. She visited all of these places but she never could tell him about any of them. It made the temptation of coming clean all the more appealing. She wanted to be able to share the most extraordinary part of her life with the man who was quickly becoming more than just a friend.

The tavern was nearly full by the time the Doctor appeared. Clara spotted him coming up the street. He had a distant look on his face, which meant he was lost in thought. She couldn't tell if his visit with Horatius had been a success. She called the Doctor's name to draw his attention and he slowly made his way over. When he sat down, he didn't say anything.

"What's wrong?" She pushed the plate of figs towards him, though she doubted he would eat any.

"Horatius was the one who did the carving." The Doctor picked up one of the figs, but he didn't bite into it. He just rolled it back and forth between his fingers, examining the skin.

"Shouldn't that be good news? So who's the owner?"

"A man named Caecilius."

The Doctor seemed strangely detached from the conversation. Clara knew he could be easily distracted, but this was something else. Something was bothering him. "Did you get an address?"

"No." The Doctor blinked, realizing his folly, and he looked up at Clara. He didn't look scared, but he was definitely rattled. It was similar to the time when he thought that the monsters from under the bed were real creatures that haunted the human race. Haunted. The word seemed apt. "Doctor, do you know him?" It was the only explanation that made sense.

The noises of the tavern seemed to fall away, like they were the only two in the room. "Yes, I've met him before. Do you remember the Doctor who married Queen Elizabeth I?"

Clara remembered that adventure very clearly. How could she not? She had met two other Doctors that day. "The one with the hair. Is he the one on the carving?" 

She saw a brief flash of annoyance in the Doctor's eyes at her description of his other self, but at least it alleviated his distant look. "He is. We met Caecilius in Pompeii, in 79 AD." The Doctor paused and it was one of those meaningfully silences where he expected her to know what he was talking about.

Pompeii. 79 AD. Clara thought back to her school days. It only took her a moment to remember and her heart lurched at the realization. Mount Vesuvius. "You were there the day that Pompeii was buried."

The Doctor nodded, looking neither ashamed nor proud to have witnessed such a powerful day in history. "I couldn't save the city, but I managed to save Caecilius and his family. The only way to get them out was with the TARDIS."

Clara was starting to make sense of it all. Caecilius and his family had been inside the TARDIS. Even she, someone from the 21st century, had been baffled by the TARDIS' impossible dimensions. For someone from the 1st century, it only seemed natural to conclude that the time machine was something that belonged to a god. "You gave them a second chance. No wonder they worshipped you."

It was a poor attempt at a joke, but the Doctor didn't acknowledge it. He sat back in his seat. "Mystery solved."

She could understand being a little shocked upon finding out that someone you had saved was now praying to you on a daily basis, but the information wasn't that disconcerting, not for someone like the Doctor. Something was still bothering him, then, to have left him that fazed. "Do you want to go see him? To see how he and his family are doing? I know you don't look the same-"

The Doctor's hand clenched and the fig he was still holding burst. The juice and pulp seeped between his fingers and dripped slowly onto the table. Clara's eyes widened at the unexpected destruction. She was used to the Doctor being more composed.

She didn't have anything to clean his hand with, but she still leaned across the table and pried his fingers opened to remove the crushed fig. The Doctor, particularly fussy about physical contact, pulled his hand away, finally noticing what he had done. With his clean hand, he pulled out a handkerchief from one of his pockets.

"Are you going to tell me what's going on, or do I need to force it out of you?" She wasn't against needling him until he grew absolutely frustrated with her, but it was kinder to let him come to his own admission.

The Doctor wiped at the sticky pulp on his palm, not quite meeting Clara's gaze. "We do look the same."

It was always weird when the Doctor referred to himself in the third person or in the plural. "I know you're both tall and skinny, but unless Caecilius' eyesight got really poor since he saw you last, I think he's going to notice a difference."

"I know I look different, Clara." The Doctor sighed before meeting her gaze. "It's Caecilius and I who look the same."

Her brow furrowed as she tried to process this new tidbit. "The same. Like, sorta resembles? Or you could be his twin?" The hard, icy stare she received in return was answer enough. "Oh." At least that explained the Doctor's behaviour just now.

He had another man's face.

"Wait. Didn't you realize that you had Caecilius' face after your regeneration?"

"My brain was a bit scrambled at the time," snapped the Doctor. He shoved the handkerchief back into his pocket. "Do we really need to talk about this? We found out where the carving came from. You can get back to your students now." He got up from the table before Clara could say anything.

She was used to his mood swings, but this was still a startling shift from his upbeat disposition this morning. Not wanting to be left behind in Ancient Rome, she left the table and hurried to catch up with the Doctor.

 

Clara didn't have to go far. The Doctor was waiting for her at the corner, his hands shoved into the pockets of his trousers. With his shoulders hunched, he looked a bit like a lost little boy. Okay, so he was a centuries old Time Lord who was far from little, but the lost part still applied.

She fell into step next to him and they started the long walk back to the TARDIS. For the first few minutes, neither of them spoke. She knew the Doctor didn't want to talk about Caecilius, but she wanted to. Clara was of the firm opinion that it would be good for him to talk it out.

"Doctor-"

He grabbed her arm before she could continue. It wasn't a harsh tug, just a fleeting contact to gain her attention. "Not now."

Someone else might have thought he was telling her off, but Clara recognized the soft urgency in his voice. Something wasn't right. He was discreetly looking around, though to the casual observer it seemed like he was simply checking out the wares in the stalls they passed. So they were being watched then.

She held back a sigh. So much for an uneventful trip.

Her first logical thought was that they had greatly annoyed one of the artisans they had visited, but she couldn't recall saying anything that would cause offence and the Doctor had been blunt, but not overbearing. Her next logical thought was that they were about to be robbed.

They _were_ dressed strangely and they had been making enquiries all afternoon at places which provided expensive services. It was simple enough to mistake them as citizens of wealth.

The sun had set and the shadows were growing darker. Now would be the perfect time for thieves to jump them.

"Thoughts?" she asked in a whisper.

"If we stay in the street, we should be fine." There were plenty of people about. Labourers were getting off of work and heading home and the shops were still open. If anyone wanted to attack them, there would be plenty of witnesses.

But Clara was applying modern thinking to the ancient world. Numerous witnesses were a deterrent back home, but here in Ancient Rome, maybe no one cared if someone got stabbed out in the middle of the street. She wanted to quicken her pace, but she forced herself to take calm, even steps.

"Do you get to choose your faces?"

The Doctor interrupted his surreptitious glances of the surrounding area to glare at her. "You want to discuss this _now_?"

She met his gaze without flinching. "Better than walking along in silence."

He pinched the bridge of his nose. "Fine." He threw up his hands. "No, I don't get to choose. I was offered a choice once, but I didn't like any of the options so I was overruled."

"So why do you look like Caecilius?"

The Doctor thought about this for a moment. "I don't know. In those first hours, I thought I was trying to tell myself something, but the notion went away once I stabilized."

Sending a message using another man's face. That seemed unnecessarily complicated. "Maybe you just wanted–"

Whatever else Clara wanted to say was forestalled when a large man slammed into her. It wasn't the accidental stumble of someone who had lost their footing. She was nearly bowled off of her feet and only the man's beefy hands on her arms kept her upright. She tried to break free, but he was stronger than her, and he easily pushed her into a narrow side street.

The next thing she knew, she was shoved up against a wall, one of the man's hand wrapped around her throat.

The back of Clara's head throbbed where she had smacked it on the wall, but it was only a minor distraction. All of her attention was focused on scowling fiercely at the man. He was built like an Olympic wrestler and the muscles in his arms bulged as he tightened his grip. She tried not to swallow as the pressure on her windpipe increased.

Two more thugs appeared, dragging the Doctor between them. He was hunched over and breathing heavily and it seemed likely they had punched him in the gut. The two men threw him down to the ground, forcing the Doctor to put out his arms to brace his fall.

"Thought you could outsmart us, could you?" The man holding Clara was the one who spoke and she pegged him as the leader of the trio. His clothes and sandals were of slightly better quality than the other two hooligans.

Though gasping for air, the Doctor still managed to chuckle. "I have the feeling it doesn't take much to outsmart you." 

The man didn't take too kindly to this, but instead of making a move against the Doctor, his hand squeezed tighter around Clara's throat instead. Against her better judgement, she moaned.

The Doctor went still, but his expression hardened. Hatred burned within his cool blue eyes. "What do you want?"

"You know already." The man smirked. "Isn't that what you do?"

Clara had no idea what he was talking about and neither did the Doctor, it seemed. He looked around at the gathered brutes, weighing his options. "Fine. Let my friend go and we can talk like civilized men."

"The chief augur doesn't want to talk. He demands that you stay out of matters that are best left to the men with true divine gifts."

"The chief augur?" The Doctor shook his head incredulously. "Tell me, who do you think I am?"

"You are an impost–"

"No, shut up. My name. What do you think my name is?"

The grip around Clara's throat slackened just a fraction as the man frowned at the Doctor. "You are Lobus Caecilius." A brief hesitation at the end of the sentence made it seem like the man wasn't a hundred percent sure.

Clara rolled her eyes skyward. Of course these men thought that the Doctor was Caecilius.

The Doctor was equally bored with this turn of events. "I am _not_ Lobus Caecilius. Even if I was, Caecilius would know better than to involve himself in divine prophesising."

The man took a moment to think it over before nodding his head at his fellow thugs. One grabbed the Doctor under his arms, pining them behind his back, and hauled him to his feet. The other immediately swooped in and rammed his fist into the Doctor's stomach. The air in the Doctor's lungs rushed out in an audible whoosh. Clara couldn't help but flinch.

The slight movement brought the man's attention back to Clara. She was growing light-headed, no thanks to the hand pressing on her throat, but she still had enough awareness to shoot daggers from her eyes. "Whoever you are, you can deliver a message to Caecilius. He can worship whomever he likes, but he can't-"

Something whizzed by Clara's ear. The man stopped short, his lips pulling down into a frown.

There was an arrow sticking out from his chest.

She barely had time to register what happened before more arrows rained down from above. The thug holding the Doctor was struck in the back and the other thug barely missed being pierced in the shoulder.

Another arrow embedded itself in the man's chest, right in his heart. In his death throes, his hand constricted around Clara's neck like a vise and she nearly choked. Gasping for air, she fought madly to free herself, but she was trapped.

When the man toppled over backwards, he pulled Clara with him, and the last thing she saw was the ground rushing towards her head.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wrote this fic back in December, but I have a feeling that it will be Moffat'd in season nine, so I thought I would get it posted before that happens. Many thanks to rumpelsnorcack for the awesome beta.

_"It's never forgotten, Caecilius. Oh, time will pass, men'll move on, and stories will fade. But one day, Pompeii will be found again. In thousands of years. And everyone will remember you."_

The words, spoken in different voice, but still his words, drifted back to the Doctor. A civilization gone and buried. Forever lost. Until it wasn't.

His eyes snapped open. Why was he only now remembering Pompeii? That trip wasn't the sort of thing one forgot. It was as if the memories had been purposely blocked from his mind and only the correct circumstances had brought them back.

The Doctor realized he wasn't outside anymore. Instead of a narrow side street, he was inside a room, laid out on a divan that was slightly too short for him.

The kidnapping, the beating, the attack; he recalled it all instantly. He had narrowly missed being impaled by an arrow. In the confusion, a stray blow must have knocked him out, if the throbbing in his head was any indication.

Clara. Where was Clara?

The Doctor sat up, suppressing a groan. He was incredibly sore; he still felt a small pang each time he drew in a breath. He scanned the room, which was dimly lit by a brazier in the corner. Colourful frescoes adorned the walls and a marble bust sat on a plinth by the door. Across from the Doctor was a bed and on it was a curled up figure.

Ignoring his pain, he surged to his feet and crossed the room in three large bounds. Right away, he knew that the figure was Clara. Her modern clothes were a dead giveaway. "Clara." He gently shook her shoulder, but she didn't stir and that drove him to seek out her pulse. The Doctor breathed a sigh of relief when he felt a strong and rhythmic throb against his fingers.

As carefully as he could, he rolled her over so that her features caught the light. She had a nasty bruise on her forehead and the skin around her neck was red and chafed, but she had no other obvious, or serious, injuries.

It seemed that someone had rescued them from the chief augur's men, but he felt no need to thank their rescuer. The chief augur's men were brutes but they hadn't deserved to die. The Doctor was ready to pick up Clara off of the bed and make a run for it when the door to the room opened.

A woman, going off the slight figure, entered, carrying a metal tray laden with two cups, a jug, and a bowl of olives. She wore a hooded cloak made out of a gauzy material. It obscured her face, but it still allowed her to see. Noticing that the Doctor was up, she walked over to him. "Divine one, please accept this meagre offering." She presented the tray to him, but kept her head down.

Offering. She was treating him like a god. The Doctor looked around the room again, noting the high quality of the furniture and the art. This wasn't a room in an insula. This was a villa. He could only think of one family in this time period who would own such a place. Could it be...?

He pushed the tray away and he threw the woman's hood back. A middle aged woman with dark brown hair looked up in shock and she quickly adverted her gaze again. He only caught a glimpse of her face, but he saw enough to know that she wasn't familiar to him.

"Who are you?" The Doctor realized he was shouting, but he didn't try to reign himself in.

The woman just cowered.

"Stop." Another voice spoke, sounding from the doorway. It was a man this time and he wore a hooded cloak similar to the woman's. The man walked over to the woman and touched her lightly on the shoulder. She immediately put down the tray, pulled her hood back up, bowed once to the Doctor, and then scurried out of the room without every turning her back to him.

"Started a cult, did you?" he asked now that they were alone.

The man removed his hood and the noble face of Lobus Caecilius stared back at the Doctor. Caecilius' hair was a bit longer than his, and worn in the Roman style, but every other feature was exactly the same. He could have been looking in a mirror.

"You are a mighty god, Doctor. Worthy of the praise from the lowly mortals."

Caecilius' voice wasn't the same as his. At least something was different, besides the man's bizarre need to start a religion that worshipped the Doctor.

"You're not surprised to see me."

"I knew you would return."

The Doctor's face twisted into a grimace. "No, don't start with that. Visions of the future nearly cost you your daughter. Tell me the truth. You know me even though I don't look the same as when we met. You're not even stunned to see that we have the same face. This is more than a cult."

Leaning down, Caecilius picked up the jug and one of the cups from the tray the woman had abandoned and poured himself some wine. "I admit that this started as nothing more than a show of gratitude from my family. You saved us from Vulcan's wrath. It seemed only right you and Donna would be our household gods."

Caecilius held out the cup to the Doctor, but he didn't even acknowledge it. "But how does that lead to you forming a cult?"

"There weren't many who survived Pompeii. When asked how we escaped, my family and I told the truth." Caecilius paused to take a sip of wine. "People were duly impressed. It wasn't long before there were others who believed in the divine protection of the Doctor and his strange temple. Rome is very tolerant of other religions. Did you know that?"

The aside didn't throw the Doctor. "You're still not telling me the whole truth."

"Then I will show you, Doctor. Come." Caecilius gestured to the door.

The desire for answers was overwhelmingly appealing, but the Doctor glanced back at Clara, still unconscious on the bed. He didn't want to leave her here on her own.

"Your companion will be fine," Caecilius assured him.

It was surprisingly hard to trust someone even if they looked exactly like you. Choosing to ignore Caecilius for the moment, the Doctor turned back to the bed and knelt down next to it. From Caecilius' point of view, it looked like he was checking on Clara one more time, but the Doctor used the opportunity to slip the sonic screwdriver into her hand. It wasn't of much use, not here in Ancient Rome, but it was better than leaving her empty handed. He gently wrapped Clara's fingers around the handle of the sonic and then hid it from view by draping the skirt of her dress over her hand.

Finally, he stood up and allowed Caecilius to escort him out of the room.

 

As he suspected, they were in a villa. Elaborate mosaics decorated the floors and there were fine furnishings in silver and gold everywhere the Doctor looked. Clearly, Caecilius had done well for himself even after the destruction of Pompeii. Exiting one wing of the villa, they walked along an open corridor that ran the length of the inner courtyard. A fountain with a statue of Mercury as its centrepiece bubbled softly in the background. It was night by now but the Doctor knew by instinct that only an hour had passed since the attack on the street.

"The chief augur doesn't like you." The Doctor's sore stomach made that painfully obviously. "I'd thought you would have stayed away from prophecy after what happened to Evelina. Or is fortune telling just something you do on the side when the marble trade isn't doing well?"

Caecilius chuckled. "I apologize for the chief augur's men. They've been quite enthusiastic in their pursuit of me. I've had to take precautions."

"With bows and arrows." The Doctor made sure his disapproval was plain to hear.

"You needed to be protected, Doctor." Used to Caecilius's carefree nature, it was startling for the Doctor to see him discussing murder so seriously.

A dark glower weighed down the Doctor's features. "That wasn't your decision to make."

"No, I am but a messenger."

They reached the other wing of the villa and passed through a doorway into the next room. The large space here might have started life as a place to entertain guests, but now it was a shrine. Two dozen people knelt on the floor, all wearing hooded cloaks that masked their faces. The object of their prostration was a curtained wall at the far end of the room flanked by large torches.

A recent renovation had taken place here. The open skylight in the ceiling was bricked over and the pool in the middle of the room was gone. Only a faint outline in the floor where the concrete used to be gave any hint that it was there. The rest of the floor had a new mosaic that had yet to be scuffed and worn by feet and time. With everyone kneeling on it, the Doctor couldn't quite make out the design. The curves and swirls seemed familiar, though.

The most surprising feature, however, were the statues placed around the room. They were life sized marble statues, exquisitely crafted, all of men of varying ages, heights, and builds, and each with their own unique fashion. There were thirteen in total.

Thirteen incarnations of the Doctor.

Every one of his faces was there, even the Doctor who had fought during the Time War. His hearts were pounding inside his chest and he fought to take even breaths. This was impossible.

The muscles in his neck went taut as the Doctor clenched his jaw. "What is this?" he asked through gritted teeth.

A few heads looked up when he spoke and a quiet murmur quickly went around the room. Soon, every worshipper was watching him and Caecilius.

"Your devoted followers–"

"No, this!" He pointed to the nearest statue, which happened to be of his eighth incarnation. "How can you know about me, all of me?"

Caecilius didn't appear at all cowed by the Doctor's sudden outburst. He was serene, almost unsettlingly so. "As I said before, Doctor, I am a messenger." He walked over to the far wall, the heads of the worshippers turning to follow him. When he reached the curtain, they all bowed their heads in reverence.

Caecilius pushed the heavy curtain aside and a ball of icy dread settled in the Doctor's stomach.

There was a crack in the wall. It was a jagged line that dipped down into the middle, giving the impression that the crack was smiling. It could have been a normal crack in the wall if not for the fact that it glowed brightly from within.

The Doctor could barely breathe now. The Crack. The one from little Amelia's bedroom. The one that haunted him across time and space. The one he protected on Trenzalore for nine hundred years.

It couldn't be here.

He was charging across the room before he even realized that he was moving. A harsh shove pushed Caecilius out of the way and then he was standing in front of the Crack, staring in bewilderment at it. With his right hand, he ran his fingers along the edges of the crack, feeling the rough stone of the wall. It was actually here. This wasn't a hallucination.

The Doctor slammed his left fist against the wall and the sudden jolt of pain knocked him out of his stupor. He turned to Caecilius. "Start talking. Now."

The man still had that tranquil look to him, as if he were stuck in a dream. "It simply appeared one day. We thought nothing of it until the voices started."

Voices. Voices, undoubtedly, trapped in another universe. It was his fellow Time Lords, still trying to find a way to restore Gallifrey to this universe.

"At first, we feared that the evil gods within Vesuvius had returned, but these gods were different. They begged us to help them and how could we not when we learned that they were your people, Doctor."

"A cult of worshippers, ready to do your bidding," the Doctor muttered darkly to the Crack. No wonder the Time Lords came here.

"They've shown me incredible things. Times and places the chief augur would never dream of. I had to share that knowledge with the people of Rome. The Time Lords will usher in a new era for the Roman Empire. One that will last the ages."

"Praise to the Time Lords," intoned the worshippers in the room.

Enthusiasm made Caecilius' eyes shine, but the Doctor saw a fanatical edge just below the surface. "Where's your family, Caecilius? Metalla, Quintus, Evelina."

Caecilius blinked at him and his eyes clouded over with confusion. "They..." For the first time, the man's genial nature slipped and he frowned. "They left." His voice dropped to a whisper. "They could not bear the gods' mighty visions."

With his lips curled into a sneer, the Doctor turned away from Caecilius. "You haven't changed at all," he snarled at the Crack. "Still manipulating other people for your own means. Why are you doing this? Having worshippers won't bring you back."

"Everything they have done was for you, Doctor." Caecilius had shaken off his confusion and his placid tone had returned. "Is it your divine right to restore your people."

One of the worshippers rose to their feet and from the folds of their cloak they revealed a wooden box whose surface was covered with Gallifreyan script. The box was presented to the Doctor.

"Take it," urged Caecilius.

The Doctor's rage had been stoked and it burned brightly within him, but a part of him couldn't deny this offer. He was being given another chance to bring his planet back. Gallifrey wasn't simply the infuriating machinations of the High Council. There were billions of people who lived there, who deserved a life beyond the Time War. He could give them that life.

He could go home.

A slight tremble went through his hands as the Doctor took the box from the worshipper. He lifted the lid and was met with the sight of glass sphere nestled within a bundle of red silk.

It wasn't a plain sphere, though. Intricate lines of thin gold, like wiring in a circuit, ran around and through the sphere. The delicate work was clearly beyond the technology of Ancient Rome. He understood now, why the Time Lords needed a cult. They could only communicate with this world, not craft anything in it.

The gold designs seemed vaguely familiar and it took the Doctor a moment to realize why. The designs were straight out of the complex calculations he had scribbled down on the numerous chalkboards on board the TARDIS, the same calculations he had been working on since his regeneration. He could never explain where the compulsion to write them down had come from but now he seemed to know.

"Take the sphere to your temple. It will give you the power to return your people to the heavens."

Could it be that easy? He could just go back to his TARDIS and plug this in to the console and he would have Gallifrey back?

The Doctor looked from the sphere to Caecilius. Despite the man's fervour, he wasn't all there. That spark of individuality was gone; overridden by the will of the Time Lords.

"Go on, Doctor. You don't have to be the last of your kind anymore."

Movement at the end of the room caught the Doctor's eye before he could do anything else and he looked over to find Clara leaning heavily against the doorway. He couldn't say how long she had been standing there, but he met her gaze now and he sensed her melancholy.

Her disappointment in him had changed his mind about destroying Gallifrey and that same disappointment lingered now. He could bring back his home planet, but was it worth the cost?

"No." The word caught in his throat and it was barely more than a croak.

"No?" That confused frown pulled at Caecilius' features again.

"I'm not talking to you." The Doctor lifted the sphere out of the box, wrapping it carefully in the length of silk so the glass wouldn't come in contact with his skin. Throwing the box aside, he turned back to the Crack.

"Do you hear me? No. I won't do it, not like this."

And with that, he hurled the sphere against the wall and the glass shattered with a loud crash. The silk contained the explosion of a thousand tiny shards, but they still rained down onto the stone floor, sounding like chimes.

The Doctor's chest heaved with deep breaths, though he hadn't strained himself physically. Every muscle in his body was tense and he struggled to regain a sense of calm. Behind him, he heard Caecilius and the worshippers cowering in fear.

A gentle hand touched him on the arm and the contact broke through the red haze filling his head. He wasn't surprised to find Clara standing next to him, her big brown eyes full of concern.

She said nothing and simply offered the sonic screwdriver to him. Taking it from her, the Doctor waved the green light over from one end of the Crack to the other. The light within the Crack slowly dimmed and, once it went out, the two halves of the wall scraped back together. A faint scar was the only indication that something had been there.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wrote this fic back in December, but I have a feeling that it will be Moffat'd in season nine, so I thought I would get it posted before that happens. Many thanks to rumpelsnorcack for the awesome beta.

There was so much tension running through the Doctor's body that Clara feared he might burst from all of the pent up rage. She didn't know what to say that wouldn't make it worse.

The people in the cloaks had their faces pressed to the floor and a few actually trembled. A small whimper made the Doctor turn around. Clara tensed, waiting for the shouting to begin.

"Go." To her surprise, he spoke evenly, but there was still a lot of emotion in his voice. He was angry, but weary, and the tiredness seemed to win out. "Leave here and tell the people that the Time Lords aren't gods."

For a second, no one moved. Clara couldn't even tell if anyone had been listening to the Doctor. She made the first move herself, walking over to the closest worshipper and slowly helping them to their feet. The hand beneath hers was small and bony and she pictured an old woman beneath the cloak.

"Go on," she urged gently. "Find a new path for yourself."

The hand squeezed around hers briefly and then it was gone. As the first worshipper left the room, a few others started to get to their feet. None dared to look in the Doctor's direction, but he didn't shy away from watching them leave. He still looked conflicted but at least the tension in his shoulders had eased.

One by one, the worshippers filed out of the room. As the last few were leaving, the Doctor shifted his attention to Caecilius.

It was so startling to see another man who looked exactly like the Doctor. Clara still hadn't got over it since she entered the shrine room. She had finally adjusted to the Doctor's new face and here it was again on someone different.

Caecilius had fallen to the floor after the Doctor smashed the sphere and he looked dazed, as though he had been hit over the head. He didn't seem aware that the Doctor and Clara were there and he looked off into the distance at some unseen point.

"Do you think he's going to be okay?" she asked. She squat down next to Caecilius and took his hand in hers. His skin was cool to the touch despite how warm it was in the room.

"He had a mental link with the Time Lords, but it's severed, now that the Crack is closed. He should be back to normal in a few days."

Clara hoped so. Caecilius had been a pawn in all of this. It wouldn't be fair if he lost his mind. "And what about you?" She rose to her feet and looked the Doctor in the eye, trying to judge the state of his inner turmoil. "You had a chance to get your home back."

The Doctor looked away and he drifted over to one of the marble statues. It was of the previous Doctor, the one Clara had first met on the Maitlands' doorstep. "I couldn't."

"Why not?"

The Doctor closed his eyes and let out a long breath. "They ruined a man's life, Clara, just so I would be here. Could you be complicit with that?"

"We came here because of the marble carving. The Time Lords didn't put it in the museum."

He opened his eyes and looked over at her. He looked so old just then. "I thought I chose this face, because I was trying to tell myself something, but it was the Time Lords who gave me this face. It was a message from them, telling me to come here." 

_"Everything they have done was for you, Doctor."_ Clara thought back to what Caecilius had said and she suppressed a shudder. The Time Lords had stolen another man's face as part of a bigger plan.

The Doctor suddenly lunged out, shoving over the marble statue of his current body. It was a rare show of strength and Clara hadn't been expecting it. She barely got out of the way before the statue toppled over and smashed into a few broken pieces. The loud crash disturbed Caecilius and his gaze darted around the room.

As quickly as the bout of anger had appeared, it just as quickly disappeared again, and the Doctor's features settled into a blank mask.

Clara had seen the Doctor angry before, but never this lost. She grabbed him by the arm, not caring that it was an invasion of his personal space, and led him out of earshot of Caecilius. "Hey, you didn't know. The Time Lords used you just like they used Caecilius. But that doesn't make you an impostor or a fraud. You're still the Doctor no matter what you look like." She smiled at him. "If the Time Lords really wanted to control you, they've would have given you a more agreeable personality. "

Her reassurance seemed to throw him momentarily, like he couldn't understand why she was being kind. "Were you always this philosophical?"

She nearly shook her head at him, but she knew his criticism was just a way of dealing with uncomfortable social moments. "Only when I get knocked on the head."

"How is your head?" The Doctor peered at her forehead.

In all of the confusion, Clara had forgotten about her headache, but now that things were calm again, the throbbing came roaring back. She poked tentatively at the lump on her forehead and she hissed at the spike of pain that ran down the length of her body right to her toes. How was she going to explain the bruise when she got back to the museum? "I'll be fine. We should worry about Caecilius."

At least Caecilius was looking better. Sitting on the floor was no place to recover, though, so they moved him to another room that was less stifling. He sat down on a padded bench while the Doctor, having found a jug of wine, went off to mix it with water to dilute it as per Roman custom.

In the corner, Clara noticed a small shrine and she stepped over to look at it. The centrepiece was a slab of carved marble featuring a man and a woman with a temple between them. It was the artefact from the museum, only it was brand new and she could now make out all of the features. The figure on the left was clearly the Doctor with the spiky brown hair that she had met last year. The figure on the right was of a woman in a long dress; a friend of the Doctor's no doubt.

She didn't see gods when looking at the carving. She saw heroes. 

Not wanting to leave Caecilius on his own, she quickly returned to the main area of the room and took a seat on the bench perpendicular to Caecilius'. The fact that she chose a separate seat was not lost on the man. "You're wary of me."

"A little," she admitted. "You look so much like the Doctor."

"Yes, it was quite a shock to me, too." Caecilius managed a small smile and it was full of warmth, so different from the Doctor's cool and fleeting smiles. Clara wasn't used to seeing such sunny expressions from the Doctor's features.

"Here, drink this." The Doctor returned with a cup of wine and unceremoniously handed it to Caecilius.

The man took a big gulp. "Thank you. I needed that." His complexion, somewhat pale before, was regaining its colour.

"How much do you remember?" asked Clara.

"I don't know. I remember some things, but I feel like I'm quickly forgetting others."

"Any Time Lord knowledge is being erased. Without the Time Lords around to maintain it, your brain simply can't hold on to it. This is a good thing, trust me. The human mind can't cope with such a high level of intellect." The Doctor hadn't sat down and he, too, seemed reluctant to be near Caecilius, as though he thought that the universe might implode if the two of them touched.

"So all humans are stupid?" asked Clara, giving him her best unimpressed teacher face.

"Not all." The briefest of smiles lit up his eyes.

"But you must think me a fool," said Caecilius. "To believe everything the gods... the Time Lords told me." He stared forlornly into his cup of wine, contemplating his watery image there.

"You are a fool," admitted the Doctor, "but so would anyone be in your position. The Time Lords had the advantage."

Caecilius gave a half-hearted nod.

"Is your family still around?" asked Clara, hoping she was moving on to a happier topic.

Caecilius thought hard for a moment as he sifted through his jumbled memories. "I think Metella took Quintus and Evelina to Naples. She has family out there."

"Then you should go to Naples. Get away from Rome for a while."

"Yes, that does sound like a good idea. It would be nice to get out of the city." With one last gulp, Caecilius tossed back the rest of the wine. He placed down the empty cup and rose to his feet to stand eye to eye with the Doctor. He held out his hand to the Time Lord. "It was good to see you again, Doctor. I cannot thank you enough for what you did for me and my family back in Pompeii."

The Doctor looked down at the man's hand, so similar to his own. Clara briefly wondered if the Time Lords had copied all of Caecilius when they granted the Doctor his new regeneration cycle. After a second's hesitation, the Doctor shook Caecilius' hand.

"Good-bye, Caecilius. Good luck with your family and stay away from city augurs."

"Oh yes. I've had my fill of augurs and soothsayers for a lifetime."

 

Thankfully, it wasn't far to the TARDIS. Caecilius' villa was situated near Palatine Hill and it was about a ten minute walk back to where the time machine was parked. Clara stole sideways glances at the Doctor the entire way. He seemed more collected now, but she had no doubt that his frustrations with his people still seethed under the surface.

When they made it back to the TARDIS, the Doctor offered to heal her forehead and neck with an ointment from the TARDIS medical kit. "We can't have you going back to the museum looking like that," he said.

Clara had to agree. No lie in the world could explain away her sudden injuries. She took a seat while the Doctor rummaged through one of the shelves on the upper level. "Do you think the Time Lords will try again?" she wondered while she waited.

There was only silence from the upper level. She glanced back and saw that the Doctor was staring absently at one of his chalkboards. She had spoken softly, but there was no doubt that he hadn't heard her. Deep down, they both knew that the answer was yes. If the Time Lords were willing to endanger one small town on Trenzalore and usurp an innocent man's religion in Rome, then it was obvious they would try again and again until Gallifrey was restored.

It was the Doctor's home, and he deserved to see it again, but it wasn't fair to him if the Time Lords continued to find ways to twist him into helping.

He finally returned with a battered white case that bore a green crescent moon on it rather than a red cross. The Doctor took out a small container and unscrewed the lid on the ointment, revealing a pale pink cream that smelled vaguely of roses. Clara started to reach for the container, but he surprised her by applying the ointment to her forehead himself. Just a small dab immediately soothed the dull throb of the bump on her head.

"Gallifrey is still out there." The Doctor didn't meet her gaze, putting his concentration on smoothing out the dab of ointment with his thumb. "They will find a way to reach me."

"You don't need them, okay? You _will_ find Gallifrey, one day, on your own terms. Not anyone else's."

"Yes." He finally glanced down at her and handed her the container of ointment. "One day."

Something in his expression told her that day would be a long way off.

 

The Fast Return Switch brought them straight back to the British Museum only a few seconds after they had left. Clara, smelling slightly of roses but with nothing else about her person noticeably out of place, stepped out of the TARDIS. "I'm going to need a shot of caffeine to keep going for the rest of the afternoon," she mused.

"At least you're not hungry," the Doctor offered from the doorway of the TARDIS.

She graced him with a brief smile. "See you on Wednesday." There was no question about it. Neither of them would miss the opportunity to take a trip somewhere.

"Wednesday." Clara walked off, headed back to the Great Court. "Don't forget to fix the clock on your mobile," he reminded her. It was, after every one of their adventures, out of sync with the rest of the clocks in London. She pulled the phone out of her pocket and waved it in the air to show that she wouldn't forget.

The Doctor waited until Clara was out of view before stepping out of the TARDIS and walking over to the marble carving that had prompted their trip to Ancient Rome. Nothing about it had changed. The right side was still missing, leaving only half of the carving of Donna; she wouldn't have appreciated that. The left side still sported a vague carving of a man. The TARDIS, proportionally the wrong size compared to the two figures, was still an odd but striking centrepiece.

He had left behind stranger artefacts in his time. He saw no harm in leaving this one be.

He walked around the display, intent on heading back down the row to return to the TARDIS. Something on the back of the marble slab caught his eye, though, before he could take more than a few steps. He looked around but only a few people were in the room and their attention was on reading the cards that went with each display. Pulling out the sonic screwdriver, the Doctor discreetly shut down the security system within a three metre radius.

Carefully, he angled the slab forward until he could see what was on the back. It was Classical Latin, the words handily translated by the TARDIS.

_We have survived Pompeii. Our thanks is owed to these gods._

A civilization gone and buried. Forever lost. Until it wasn't.

Pompeii had endured. It still endured, even if it was a shell of its former self. The Doctor could only hope he did Gallifrey the same justice one day.


End file.
